We Need Action
Anyone close to me knows that I value action. I crave it. In fact, you can drop me in the middle of any fiasco your business might be enduring and, if there are clear steps to take, I’m calm – free from worry. But if we don’t know what to do next or can’t move forward that’s when I start to freak out a bit.
I first discovered this little phenomenon in myself about 6 years ago when I realized that I never panicked in traffic as long as the traffic was moving. If we were bumper to bumper but we were in motion, I was fine. It was only if every lane was completely stopped and we could not move that I would start to become anxious.
There are many examples in my life where this is true. Why? I need to be in motion. I need progress. I need action.
As a society we love action. A lot of people choose football, hockey or basketball over watching golf simply because they say golf’s “too slow” and thus boring. We dig car chases on television and we flock to theaters to see a movie genre known as, well, “action.”
The irony is that for a people group so interested in action we rarely value it in ourselves. We procrastinate, deflect and often times choose dream over “do.” Why is that? Is it laziness?
I think, for a lot of people, it is fear – fear of failure, fear of embarrassment, fear of being wrong. For me personally there have been times where I have dragged my feet because I was afraid of wasting my time. I didn’t want to devote a year to working hard on something only to find out that it was not right. Nobody wants to run in the wrong direction and that’s what I was afraid of.
I think, whatever our reason is, we need to get over it. We need to do whatever we can to bury that tendency deep. The fear of in-action should be what scares us most.
I recently attended a leadership conference where, for two days, I was given the opportunity to sit and absorb the words of some of the most amazing leaders on the planet. I witnessed some incredible things and am still digesting it all.
One thing that stuck with me was the phrase, “The difference between visionaries and daydreamers is that visionaries do something.”
Your dreams are just dreams unless you get off your butt and start working on them. Your bucket list is just a list unless you start checking things off. That idea for a business, a charity an invention has no value unless you make it happen.
At the same conference I had the pleasure of hearing from Michelle Rhee, former Chancellor of D.C. Public Schools. If you’ve ever seen the movie “Waiting for Superman,” you are quite familiar with her work. She’s a very polarizing person. The corrupt teachers unions swear that she is the Devil while Education Reformists feel that she’s in line for sainthood.
Michelle is one of my heroes. I believe that we desperately need education reform in this country but that’s not why I love her so much. Michelle Rhee is my hero because she did what every politician has failed to do. She went to work. She didn’t stand on a platform and proclaim that we needed a change, no, she made the change happen.
I value anybody who is willing to get to work; anybody who acknowledges their dreams but then focuses on the steps to achieve them.
I remember this story about a dad. His son came up to him and said that he wanted to be a professional basketball player like Michael Jordan when he grew up. The dad looked back and said, “Son, I really believe that you can play in the NBA one day. But you should know that Michael Jordan spent every waking hour practicing and training long before he became a pro. Son, you spend all your free time playing video games.”
I’m very tired of this “you can be anything you want” attitude we have. “Just dream it and be it, Timmy.” We’re literally dreaming ourselves out of success. Our country wasn’t built by dreamers. It was built by visionaries. Even Martin Luther King Jr., who famously said “I have a dream,” wasn’t a dreamer because he took action.
You see, we didn’t dream our way West. We didn’t dream our way to the moon. Sure, some of these goals seemed far off at the time but somebody quit dreaming, turned on the lights and got to work. That’s the difference. Mountains are too big to climb and planes are too scary to jump out of yet both can be done time and time again. But you have to take a step, you have to take action in order to do it.
I don’t know what my legacy as a man will be but I hope it’s said that I was a man of action; that I had big dreams but I knew when it was time to get to work.
What are you not doing? Let’s start taking action. We may not achieve our dreams today but let’s get to work. I promise that you’ll be amazed by what you accomplish.
Photo by DVIDSHUB (Flikr Creative Commons)
